Out of the Blue Color Option #1

Swap the lights and darks for a pop-art version of Out of the Blue. Two primary motifs emerge depending on your viewpoint. Do you see dark four-petal flowers with a Four-Patch at the center? Or do the light four pointed stars comes to the forefort for you?

Out of the Blue Color Option #2

Florals are perhaps the ultimate multicolor prints. A simple rule of thumb for combining other colors with a realistic floral print is this: mix in some leafy green. The hint of gold in the block centers frames the Four-Patch in each block.

Regular Joe Color Option #1

An all-batik Regular Joe echoes a vertical half of the original quilt. Though the rows are shorter, this quilt stays true to the shifting rows emerging from the pattern center, which makes the rows appear to be water rippling away from a shoreline.

Regular Joe Color Option #2

Designer: Laura Boehnke

How do you keep one-color quilts from being ho-hum? When pulling fabrics for a monochromatic quilt, don't forget to pull all the shades of that hue. Not only do the vertical rows look like stairsteps, but each fabric appears to stairste across the width of the quilt as well.

Regular Joe Color Option #3

Designer: Laura Boehnke

Conventional wisdom might lead you to think that brights must be paired with other brights. But adding a dull putty color to this mix provides two things: a resting point for the eye and a balance to the busyness of the bright.

Red, White & Oooh Color Option #2

A delightful white plus 1930s prints version might well be hiding something. If you focus your attention on the four white centers of what appear to be Square-in-a-Square blocks with 1930s print corners, it's easy to lose sight of the star formed in the four corners.

Stitches to Savor

Consider these beyond-the-basics stitches when you're ready to embellish a project. Get the first five 2014 issues to learn 10 embroidery stitches. A project in the December 2014 issue will incorporate the year's stitches.